


Traitor's ambush

by birdroid



Series: Ask Solas entries for biowareask @ vk.com [2]
Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Elvhenan, Gen, Headcanon, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-01 22:13:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,002
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23684452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/birdroid/pseuds/birdroid
Summary: Fen'Harel and his followers are caught off-guard by auxiliaries hired by evanuris' priests, and there's only a handful of people who could have sold them out.
Series: Ask Solas entries for biowareask @ vk.com [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1705687
Kudos: 1





	Traitor's ambush

**Author's Note:**

> Q: Have you ever been betrayed during your rebellion?

Someone was bound to sell them down the river. The hideout, an Elgaran manor not too remote from where the Dragon Way crossed the Faithful Arrow Path with its patrols shuttling south and north and south again, located high up on the erected spiral pillar of a cliff and sparkling like a cold blue star in the ink-black sky whenever the dusk fell and its tenants had to light the lamps, this hideout was an opportunity too hard to miss for a fickle mind.

Walls and columns surrounding atrium yard glow brighter than ever today. The eluvian on the opposite side of the entryway glares with light so blindingly white and hot against the chilly night it makes eyes hurt, but it's not the light coming out of it that troubles Solas the most. Dwarves and men, clad in scales of iron and leather and sometimes glinting with silverite gilded bracers, step out of the mirror, making it respond with a flash whenever a new body comes out. Much like a flood, they fill every square of the manor with their presence, their numbers well beyond the point when counting them could have made any difference.

Solas hisses under his breath, "Delltash."

Auxiliaries. He heard the rumors of priests seeking help on behalf of their deities from other peoples, but he has never seen them in the flesh. The war has been on long enough for elvhen to taste the tragedy of mortality on a scale they have long since last seen, and sometimes the hand of a fellow warrior wavered before the final blow, sometimes the spell ended abruptly, unfinished, and far from sometimes, Solas used it to his own advantage.

He knew exactly when to call for the loftier ideals of his kin.

Auxiliaries were not his kin. Dwarves and men were born with ever-vigilant death looming over their fate, and so they saw less crime in taking someone's life—especially if the someone in question looked different.

Finally, the eluvian calms down, its frantic incandescence fading down to its natural glow. The leaden sea of unwelcome pikes and staffs parts with roaring clangor as the warriors make way for a stout figure to emerge forward.

"So you pointy-eared rats are here indeed."

No one rises to the insult of the dwarf.

"Which one of you is the Dreck Pup everyone's scared so shitless about?"

Solas not so much sees Ghilan casting a glance at him as he feels it with the back of his neck.

Pytha, Ghilan, and Jesanna. All three have their share of disagreements with Solas, friends once and mere allies now. Pytha can't find it in herself to forgive Solas for sacrificing her beloved one, Ghilan lost too many a friend for the cause, and Jesanna shouldn't even be here for she is a human, one of a kind.

Ghilan's chuckle breaks the silence. "Never thought I'd see the day you Stone Children start doing the evanuris' bidding," he says, making a deliberate, almost lazy step toward the dwarf. With his tone so jovial and his stance seemingly so easy and relaxed, Solas has to admit Ghilan does an impressive job at imitating him.

"Why, sorry we kept you waiting, rat lordling," the dwarf cries back, bending in an intricate bow. "Your quarters proved to be tricky to find. Pray tell me now, are you the Fen'Harel or are you not?"

Ghilan takes a heartbeat to glance over the armed mass of aliens. His voice almost doesn't quaver as he responds, "I am a wolf dreaded by my foe."

Another male voice joins in, "The wolves are many, and we are led by no man."

To Solas's right Pytha speaks up, "Neither we're led by a woman. Our leader is freedom, our weapon is—"

The shaft of the spear gets halfway stuck in her belly at the right angle. Pytha shrieks and drops to her knees, holding the spear with both hands to ease the pain its weight causing her.

"I've heard this drivel so many times I can't get it out of my head now, thank you. Now, the Fen'Harel. There's less than a dozen of you and more than a fourscore of us. You can't hex us all off, and we have enough sorcerers of our own. Give him out, and we'll end this in peace."

"I haven't finished, you brittle slag," Pytha retorts back, choking on the pain. "But it seems to me you'd like another ending."

She closes her eyes and frees her hands from the grip on the spear. If not for the weapon piercing her body and the growing pool of dark blood beneath her, she would have looked resting, dormant.

Pytha saw the spear flying to her, Solas is sure of that, however short the instance was. She didn't stop it not because she couldn't. She didn't want it.

Neither she wants to become a traitor, it seems.

Or even die as one.

Solas chose this Elgaran manor, visible for leagues around day and night alike not for the windows of bedroom quarters overlooking scenic Dragon Teeth Mountains or snakes of rivers glistening in the emerald green valley. Nor did he find the architecture of the place appealing.

The pool of blood under Pytha spreads unnaturally fast.

The Fade is so musty in the air here you could taste it when you breathed in with your mouth. It doesn't respond to feeble calls of human magic—however, the elvhen art is another matter altogether.

Especially when enhanced by the blood of their kin.

A gigantic spiderweb of lightning bolts spreads out in the yard, cracking in the air. Auxiliary mages cast spells quick to protect some, but not quick enough to protect many. The lucky archers draw arrows out and shoot, only for the pointy wave to disintegrate in midair.

Speaking of kinship, among the dozen of his wolves, he can't seem to find Jesanna.

And a small wonder that is, considering how she must be dreading him now.


End file.
